Rage Against The Machine's 1996 album Evil Empire featured a painting of a child that looks pretty fake, or at least like an amalgamation of a bunch of really menacing looking kids. Neither one of those assumptions are true. That child is author, owner of Less Doing and entrepreneur Ari Meisel, who says in an interview with Kerrang! that he was recognized a lot as a kid when he had hair and that the whole experience was "surreal."
It's also worth noting that Ari no longer has hair.
Meisel says he never met the band, and his father sold the band the painting.
Actually, I didn’t model nor meet the band. My father was and is an art dealer and he represented the painter, Mel Ramos. Mel painted the original painting of me, entitled CrimeBusters, as a birthday present for me when I turned 11. The group saw the painting in a book of Mel’s and liked it, then adapted it for their album cover.
Oh, and no – he's not a fan of the band. Meisel compares the experience of being recognized for the album art to "that scene in Office Space when the two guys find out the guy they are interviewing is named Michael Bolton, and they say, 'Oh my god, you must be such a fan of his work.'"
At least he didn't call anyone a no talent assclown.
